


Five Silvers

by windstar127



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Gen, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:52:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windstar127/pseuds/windstar127
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An incident in the docks when Cauthrien was just a new lieutenant in Maric’s Shield and her first tour of duty in Denerim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Silvers

**Author's Note:**

> My headcanon is that Cauthrien is, by nature, a good person who doesn’t like to hurt innocent people. But she’ll do her duty, no matter how much it kills her inside. So this is just a bit of the sort of person I think Cauthrien is when she’s not being torn apart by her duty.

Five Silvers

The coins jingled in her purse with the handful of copper as she patrolled the docks district in search of the missing squad late to return from leave. Five silvers, the weekly pay for a newly minted Lieutenant of Maric's Shield and more money than she'd ever had before. Cauthrien allowed herself a small smile. She could send money home for her sister's dowry. Or for fixing the roof. Or buying her brother an apprenticeship. Or for spring planting so her father wouldn't have to take on more debt. Anything at all, it seemed, was possible with those silver coins in her purse and more to come each week.

A light tug at her belt interrupted her daydreams.

One hand dropped to the hilt of her sword, and she spun, lighting fast, to catch a small grubby creature by the wrist. The girl, elven judging by her slim build and pointed ears, couldn't have been more than twelve years old. She froze in shock and stared at Cauthrien with wide grey eyes.

"Explain yourself," Cauthrien growled.

The girl trembled like a rabbit caught in the sights of a hawk and said nothing.

"Just kill it and be done with it," the sailor lounging on the steps on the ramshackle building laughed and leaned back to watch the desired bloodshed. "No one's going to miss it. Trying t' steal from an officer, in broad daylight no less. Seems like these vermin are getting bolder by the day." 

The girl's gaze dropped to Cauthrien's sword, and a small pathetic whimper escaped from her throat. A lone tear trickled down one dirt smudged cheek.

"I did not ask for your opinion, churl," Cauthrien glared at the man. "I will not hurt a child for your sick amusement. Leave. Now. Or face my blade."

He scrambled away without another word, and Cauthrien looked at the terrified child. At the wide eyes too large for such a thin little face. At the red and chapped hands and bare feet. At the tattered clothing that would serve better in a rag bin. 

"I will give you a chance to explain yourself before I see if I need to call the guards," she said, gentler this time. 

"I...you...you looked like you wouldn't miss it..." Kal's voice faltered as she stared at the ground. "Papa and I run errands here, but there's no work for Papa and nothing for me either and there's nothing to eat and Shianni and Soris are too little to help...and...and...there was nothing else to try except that or...or...I'd rather die than let those shem use me." The last words came out in an angry rush as the girl's mouth twisted with disgust.

She knew what it was like to be hungry. When the crops failed and the taxes rose and there wasn't enough to last the cold dark days at year's end. When they ate roots and leaves and old boiled leather and considered themselves lucky to have that much. When the children born in those months didn't live to see spring. She knew the desperation that came with that hunger that drove men to banditry and worse so their families might have something, anything, to eat, and she knew what another sort of men did. And this was a child, no older than her youngest sister.

"You know this place," Cauthrien said, her expression softening.

"Yes, ser. I do."

"I'm looking for five men, armed and in the uniform of Maric's Shield. They would have arrived last night. Would you be able to find them if I asked?"

"...I...I saw them. Sanga kicked them out from the Pearl when they didn't pay. They weren't too pleased about it. Think I know where they are though."

"Take me to them." Cauthrien let go of the girl's wrist and half expected her to run away immediately.

"Yes, ser," the girl nodded.

A quarter hour of winding through back alleys and up and down treacherous steps later, five disheveled and otherwise embarrassed soldiers reported to their commander outside a hovel of a whorehouse, who sent them on their way with a grimace and a snarl. Cauthrien shook her head as the throughly abashed soldiers trudged out.

"You, girl, come here," Cauthrien gestured at the girl hiding in the shadows and slipped a hand into her purse.

Five silvers. For her sister's dowry or her brother's apprenticeship or... She drew out the coins one by one and placed them in the girl's cold little hand.

"Stay out of trouble," she said, and then turned and walked away, leaving the girl in stunned silence behind her.


End file.
